


A Tithe Rare and Sweet

by dread_thehalfhanded



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Iorveth has a vag, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mating Season, PWP, Penis In Vagina Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Shameless Smut, Smut, Title is a vague Hozier reference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:01:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26869336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dread_thehalfhanded/pseuds/dread_thehalfhanded
Summary: He knew elves had mating seasons, unlike humans. Periods of unbearable arousal, punctuated by long stretches where the idea of sex was almost repulsive. Thus, their derision of the human sex drive. If he had to guess, he would say Iorveth was, well—in season. Painfully so.And he was alone.
Relationships: Iorveth/Vernon Roche
Comments: 11
Kudos: 128





	A Tithe Rare and Sweet

_Where is he?_

Blood trickled down a fresh cut on his forearm—shallow, nothing to worry about—and Roche swept another cursory scan over the haphazard clash of men and elves. Spread out over the narrow dirt road, blue uniforms grappled with fierce fur coats and lean faces. Nothing unexpected, their escort intercepted on their way into the city. No traps, rigged avalanches, or a second party waiting around the bend.

This was too simple. Iorveth didn’t just attack, it was a whole production, five steps ahead at all times, measures and counter-measures stacked against each other. A full-frontal assault? He didn’t trust it.

He scanned the field again, his half-perch in the tree giving him silent vantage.

Messy. Too many fists, knives—one pair of blue-and-elf had already gone to the ground, wrestling tooth and boot. Not clean, but whatever it took.

Where _is_ he? No slim curved swords, no sign of the rook, the queen on today's chessboard. Waiting? An ambush?

In the Scoia’tael rear-guard, he finally spotted a hungry-looking elf with sunken eyes and cheeks signaling to the Scoia’tael. Ves saw him too—and was steadily making her way towards him with murder in her eyes—but Iorveth, the prize, was nowhere.

Roche ground his teeth.

What even was the ploughing point if he wasn’t here?

“Fenn, Thirteen!”

Two heads turned obediently, and he waved them over to his position at the rear.

“Iorveth’s not here. They’re planning something, don’t know what. I’m going to find out – this is most of them. Keep them occupied, don’t let up, but don’t overextend—you heard me. I’ll see what these bastards are up to.”

“Alone, boss?”

“Not going to fight. Going to stop Iorveth from blowing our heads off with some squirrel bullshit. Tell Ves, yeah?”

They nodded, and Fenn saluted halfway before Thirteen pulled him down: a moment before a stray arrow whistled past his wrist.

“Got it boss!”

They returned to the fray, Thirteen whispering into Fenn’s ear before launching himself out from behind the wagon with an ear-splitting battle cry.

Roche cringed, but turned on his heel without looking back. He had an elf to find.

\---

He crashed through the trees, hand on the hilt of his sword, hurtling towards the last known location of the Scoia’tael camp. Yeah, he’d known where it was. But they had healers and civilians with them often enough. Unsporting, to attack there, and unfair.

On Temerian roads against Temerian civilians? That was different.

The cool late-afternoon air nipped at him, and he tried to pace his jog to something sustainable, but his heart pounded in his ears. Who knew what else that bastard could get up to unsupervised? And if he’d just taken the day off… well, this could be his once chance to seize the elf and bring him in alive.

The prospect made him grin wide enough to scare Ves, if she’d been around. Best she wasn’t.

He broke into the small clearing with barely any breath left in his lungs. It looked deserted, no fire burning, all the ladders dangling far, far out of reach overhead. Fuck if he knew how they got up there. Any number of Squirrels could be looking down from the trees at him now, arrows nocked and ready.

The things we do for Temeria.

Drawing his sword, the sound of steel on steel strangely settling, he dealt with what he could: tents. Knocking each flap aside in turn, he found each one as empty as the last. Bedrolls, blanket piles, in one a giant nest of leaves and grasses woven together. Weird.

Not an elf in sight.

He looked up at the tree platforms again, and squinted against the afternoon sun. No one. Wind whistled through the treetops, a light whisper of swaying branches the only sound save the birds.

Nothing here. He sighed. Must have missed him, come all this way for nothing.

Scanning the camp one more time, he caught sight of a cave mouth carved into the rock wall. Almost indistinguishable from the sheer rock face, and so high up he could see only darkness inside. On closer inspection, a winding path twisted up to it, almost sheer. The cave mouth cut into the stone like a window into the earth—deep, then.

If there was anywhere in these gods-forsaken woods to keep a headquarters, that would be it. If he couldn’t get Iorveth, he could at least gather some valuable intel, maybe preempt a strike.

Nothing for it. He would have to climb.

\---

Cold rock cut into his fingers as he hauled himself up the narrow path, wind catching at his chaperone, lifting it like his own personal banner. Here be Roche, it heralded, the scourge of Temeria’s gutters, hunter of poor elves who sleep in literal grass. Quiver before him.

Hauling himself up the final few feet to the flat slab of stone before the cave’s mouth, he rolled onto his back for a moment and stared up at the sky.

Gods, he was too old for this.

The ever-present threat of an elven arrow or dagger at his throat pushed him up and forward again. One gloved hand against the sheer wall, an eye to the length of the drop, he peered around the corner into the cave.

Inside, he saw exactly what you would expect of a cave. Stone floor, uncomfortably low ceilings, dead leaves rolling over themselves into dirt and stone older than anyone remembered. At the back of the cave hung a long red curtain, ragged with age, with a small light burning behind it. So not a monster’s lair, then.

What he heard, however, was _not_ the sound you expect to hear in a cave. A low moan, like a wounded animal, a cry of pain or fear. Hair prickling on his arms, Roche checked his perimeter once more before stepping slowly forward, sword before him, each footfall painfully careful. No other visible exits or entrances, and he hadn’t been followed. Whatever was behind that curtain would be the cave’s primary occupant, unless the tunnel went back even further—

The sound came again, louder as he was closer, and he heard the shuffling of someone tossing and turning, as if with fever.

Was he ill? If this was Iorveth, that would be why his second in command stood so grim, and attacked so forcefully. They had a lot to lose, if their leader struggled so.

Slowly, slowly, with a care he felt in every trembling muscle, he peeled back the faded curtain with the tip of his sword.

Vernon Roche had seen a lot in his life. He’d been through a lot.

But none of it prepared him for the sight of Iorveth, feared leader of the Scoia'tael, absolutely stark naked and dripping sweat. Head flung back, long hair damp around his shoulders, every breath a soft gasp, hips rocking desperately against a pile of blankets damp with sweat and… something else. 

Time froze for a single pendulous moment as Roche tried to absorb that.

He watched, frozen, for a suspended moment as a single droplet of sweat ran slowly down between the elf’s pecs—

Someone choked, loudly, on their own saliva, and Iorveth’s head snapped down, hips stilling. Roche raised his hands, absurdly, since he was the one with the weapon here.

But the elf didn’t curse, or rage, or say anything at all. He just looked at him with a blank confusion, the dead eye socket uncovered, the one good eye half-lidded and cheek streaked with tears. He’d stopped moving but his thighs shook with the effort of staying still.

For a moment they stared at each other.

Roche’s eyes, ever traitorous, darted down to the puddle of blankets, and saw the slit of Iorveth’s cunt pushed wide with something, liquid leaking out over his thighs. Unmistakable. He jerked his gaze up again, still unable to move, waiting for the killing blow—but none came.

Instead, Iorveth started to move again, slow small rocks against whatever he had between his legs, another tear dripping down his cheek.

This wasn’t right. Wasn’t the arrogant squirrel he knew. The loathing, the anger that twisted in his gut surely as every time he saw those pointed ears gave way to something else. Not pity, not quite. The man who felt such saccharine things as pity died long ago.

Still. The elf was clearly in pain.

Slowly, he lowered his sword to the ground, keeping his hands up so that Iorveth would know he meant no harm. And he didn’t—poor form indeed to kill someone like this. Would be a dishonor to king and country alike.

He knew elves had mating seasons, unlike humans. Periods of unbearable arousal, punctuated by long stretches where the idea of sex was almost repulsive. Thus, their derision of the human sex drive. If he had to guess, he would say Iorveth was, well—in season. Painfully so.

And he was alone.

“Are you…” he fished clumsily for words that would fit, unable to take his eyes from the steady gyration of the elf’s hips, the lean lines of muscle knotting together so clear under the skin.

“Why is no one here to… help you?”

No answer. Elves were communal about sex, he knew, vaguely, inclined to all pitch in when the seasons did come. Strange that he would be alone.

Long gone with it, Iorveth blinked, another tear trickling out. Sadness? Fury? He couldn’t tell.

Roche couldn’t take his eyes from him. All trace of the proud Aen Seidhe was gone, replaced with something desperate and starving. Was it always like this for them? The thought of that helplessness filled him with an empathetic terror he hadn’t known he still possessed.

Fuck.

He sighed, and started to take off his gloves, gaze never leaving the elf.

“Let me?”

Iorveth stopped. The blank gaze shifted, finally, to one of flint and raw hunger. His hips fluttered once more, and he met Roche’s eyes.

The elf nodded, once. He did not even have the decency to look ashamed about it.

Roche slid carefully onto the blanket nest next to him, and reached out to tentatively brush his hand over Iorveth’s slatted ribs. The elf did not move, but watched him with that green eye tracking every moment. His skin was soft, smooth as the downy feathers on a chick, pale as the moon. His hand followed every curve, every line, then dipped down to the concave belly just below the naval.

As his hand slipped lower and lower, Iorveth moaned long and loud, hips snapping forward: a giving in.

Roche took him in his arms.

Slipping one arm around the elf’s back, he tried to ease him down onto the blankets, but Iorveth pushed back, keeping them chest to chest and kneeling. For an elf that had always sneered at humans, he seemed awfully interested in clawing his way close as skin. Roche took a private satisfaction in this.

Not so repulsive when it matters.

Close now, Roche could smell him too, damp and hot. He wondered how long he’d been here, like this—

Iorveth cut his thoughts off with a clamp of teeth to his neck, hard enough to leave marks, but not enough to draw blood. He jolted, and nearly let the elf go long enough to smack him open-palmed, but at the desperate whine he made along with it?

Roche wanted to hear more of that sound, immediately.

Trailing his fingers down to the perplexing slit, he gently touched what he _hoped_ was a clit—and was rewarded with another moan. While oddly hairless, this at least was familiar. Encouraged, he rubbed it gently in small circles watching the red in the elf’s cheek rise until it matched his scar.

It took only moments before he was clawing at Roche’s uniform with a growl, and coming all over Roche’s hand and whatever strange, thick glass object was still inside him. Wet, was Roche’s only conscious though, captivated by the way the elf’s cry caught on a high note at the apex of his pleasure. Very wet.

Iorveth lay in Roche’s arms for about three breaths before lifting his head and pushing Roche over onto his back. Letting him, Roche skated his hand down lower to explore what Iorveth had been using to pleasure himself. Or, trying to.

He tapped on it with a fingernail, curious, the wide base clear and warm as glass warmed by flesh. He looked up at Iorveth—now straddling him and endeavoring to grind against his mail—and before he could even ask, the elf nodded again.

Hoping he understood that signal, he grasped it with finger and thumb and pulled gently. With a small sucking noise, and another gush of liquid that went all over him, he pulled out what was, yes, a glass cock.

Huh.

Uninterested in his personal revelations about the mating habits of other species, Iorveth grasped his hand and the cock and shoved both away, again attempting to ride his mail.

“Hey, hey. That’ll hurt— Just, _wait_ —”

He got all the way to unbuckling his belt before Iorveth had wriggled off of him and pulled his trousers down.

“O-kay—"

Iorveth pounced, straddling him again with singular purpose, and took Roche’s cock in both hands, stroking as though he meant to sand down the edges. 

Roche made a noise he hadn’t known he was capable of making.

He was already hard—shut up, how could he NOT be—and this was too much.

“Easy,” he choked out, pressing himself against Iorveth’s opening. It seemed the quickest way to get his hands off and the relevant bits on.

He thrust inside with a quick, shallow motion, testing to see how much, how fast, how hard. The elf’s breathing came hard and fast, as he thrust shallowly into him, a little deeper each time. He felt like any human inside, except tighter, gods, excruciatingly tight. The pressure was almost unbearable, the passage narrow—it took all the strength he had not to drive inside at once.

Iorveth, however, did not feel the same, and dropped his weight abruptly, taking all of Roche all at once with a soft cry.

Half-naked, balls-deep in an elf who only very recently had tried to put an arrow through his skull, Roche spared a thought for what on earth he was doing with his life.

But Iorveth rocked forward, drawing him in another impossible inch, and cried out again in pleasure or pain—and it no longer mattered. One hand on the elf’s warm back, he tipped his head up, trying once more to meet the elf’s eye. Okay? Was this okay?

Green, a dark and endless green eye flickered back at him, lidded and dark-iris’d, and Roche figured that was all the okay he was going to get. Iorveth’s thighs trembled as he rose and fell, rose and fell, with a steadily-increasing rhythm, and all at once it was all Roche could do to hold on. He grasped the slender waist with both hands, dimly aware of dark ink under his palms, and let the elf ride him hard and fast.

In moments, Iorveth was coming, gasping slick and arching back and neck into an impossible curve. A few slurred syllables in elder fell from his lips as he clenched, and clenched, and clenched again.

Through sheer force of will alone, Roche grit his teeth and did not come. Would have been a shame to leave the party early, was all.

He held the elf upright, focusing on the sweat pooling underneath his back and the rasp of Iorveth’s breathing in his ears as he fought to catch his breath. How many times had he done this already, alone? Surely, he would hurt, if the pink, puffy flesh around his opening was anything to go by. Swollen with use, slick with sweat and Iorveth’s own juices, he couldn’t help but run his fingers through the wetness and up over the inflamed clit.

Iorveth growled at that and pushed his hands away in what appeared to be anger, and Roche laid back and raised his hands just long enough for the elf to follow him down and begin tearing at his clothes.

“Off?”

The elf nodded vigorously, still disinclined to speak, and did not stop trying to bodily remove Roche from his clothes. Fingers tore against mail, nearly ripping the blue fabric, before Roche grabbed the elf with both hands and forcibly unseated him. Still hazy from orgasm, the elf went, folding over himself into a lanky puddle of hungry eye and heated skin, gaze never leaving the human.

Barely able to concentrate on the clasps and ties of his mail and shirt, Roche scooted away just long enough to yank the whole thing over his head, catching needlessly on his shoulders. He wriggled out of it, feeling himself flush absurdly in embarrassment at his awkwardness in front of someone so put together.

Which was ridiculous, given the circumstances. Iorveth was half out of his mind desperate for cock, and Roche was worried about looking desperate?

He tossed the mail aside and faced the elf on his knees, now entirely naked except for his mis-matched socks. Iorveth did not appear to have any particular designs on those, and was on him again not a breath after he tossed the mail and tunic aside together with a clatter.

Again, Roche tried to roll them over, and again Iorveth pinned him down with lean, rich thighs, desperate and claiming. He rocked his clit against Roche this time, rubbing over the sensitive skin—and Roche could not take his eyes from it. Without looking away, he gently lifted Iorveth away only long enough to re-seat him and push inside, the elf’s quiet gasp very, very satisfying.

This time, he took a little control back, holding Iorveth’s hips and forcing him to slow down, to take his time with every long, hot thrust inside. The elf gripped his wrists, and held on for dear life, but didn’t fight his rhythm—though he could have.

A thousand and one emotions played over the un-scarred side of his face as they moved together, and Roche watched each one. It was such a strange thing to see his enemy so vulnerable without a blade at his neck. The way his chest rose and fell with each ragged breath, the flush that stained his chest and neck, the way his hair clung to his neck damp and unbound. His face, too, pitted, stretched, and scarred, had relaxed into something warm and receptive.

With a grunt, he dragged the elf firmly onto him, and began to thrust harder and faster. At that, Iorveth released his wrists with a cry, sensing that he would be allowed the pace he craved, and fell forward with his hands framing Roche’s face.

The pace, suddenly, was no longer Roche’s, and Iorveth drove against him over and over with a near-blinding fury that had him ready to cry out. As he neared the edge of orgasm, he took the elf’s face in his hands and kissed him. He wanted—he _wanted_ to give him everything, to fill him to overflowing how he needed.

“’M gonna—” he started, and Iorveth came with a moan against him, ragged gasping out his pleasure with every rock of their hips.

Buried inside, bursting with the thought of filling the elf, moments later Roche came too, the elf hot and wet all around him.

Foreheads pressed together, Roche’s first coherent thought post-orgasm was that Iorveth was _still going._

He let him, as long as he could and then some, but it hurt too soon. All the slick in the world couldn’t stop a soft cock from pinching when squished by an overzealous elf.

“Hey, hey.” He patted the elf’s side. “Up here?”

He gestured to his face, and Iorveth blinked. He was shaking again, Roche realized, and he half-pulled, half gathered him up into an embrace. They lay together in the strangest truce, Roche soft and half-floating in post-pleasured haze, stroking the elf’s hair in what he hoped was gentleness. Iorveth clung to him, one hand splayed out on his chest, pale hand against olive skin.

After some time, the elf’s shuddering slowed, and then finally stopped. He raised his head, and nodded, a lock of dark hair falling into his eyes.

Before he could respond, Iorveth had risen to his knees and was kneeling over Roche’s face, looking down at him with that glazed expression again. Any trepidation Roche had about the following activity was swallowed the moment his mouth touched the welcoming folds.

Iorveth was soft. Not that he had been expecting anything else but—fuck. Soft, and wet, and he could slip him tongue inside like nothing at all. He tasted himself, slick and bitter, and the sweetest juices he could remember. He licked, and licked, and licked, wanting to taste any and all of it.

Shuddering against him, Iorveth tangled his fingers in Roche’s short hair and tugged him ever closer, rutting against his nose even as he plunged his tongue inside. One hand full of the elf’s ass, he pulled him closer, encouraging. What was tomorrow’s sore jaw to this?

It took longer this time, but Roche didn’t mind, letting the elf buck against him as long as he wanted, finally grabbing his hair roughly and crying out with an abandon Roche never thought he would see from him. Yet that he had seen today several times over. The sound tore from him, bold and wild, like he had never run from hunters, never been a criminal or a fugitive or the last of a dying race.

When the elf finally sagged, Roche patted his thigh as a suggestion to let him breathe again. Iorveth acquiesced, though the thought flitted through Roche’s mind that this might be an elaborate plan to murder him. He found he did not mind overmuch, if true.

Iorveth rolled off him, and coiled into a ball beside him.

Done, then?

The tension in the hunched shoulders and the curved back said no. Roche read nonverbal signals for a living—did Iorveth really think he could hide anything, at this point?

He patted the smooth side, gently.

“You need more?”

A moment of silence.

Iorveth turned his head, the scarred side facing over his shoulder so that he could not actually see an expression.

“Taken too much already,” said the elf, soft, with very little emotion. He sounded exhausted.

“I don’t mind.”

Running a hand down the soft side, over the crux of his hips, and down his thigh, Roche pulled gently at Iorveth, encouraging him to turn over. If he didn’t, that would be enough—

But he did, rolling onto his back just enough for Roche to see the quiver of his folds, his flushed clit. Roche put a hand on the inside of his thigh, where the skin smoothed palest and purest, half-hidden in the candle’s shadow—it wasn’t a caress. It wasn’t.

And when Iorveth sighed, softer and much less ragged than before, it wasn’t pleasure. It wasn’t. Just need.

He trailed two fingers through the clear liquid that clung to his thighs, the sanctum of his hips, and thrust them inside.

“Oh,” said Iorveth, very, very softly.

When his manhood fails, a hand may do just as well, thought Roche, thrusting in and out with grim determination. Never left a partner unsatisfied in all his time, and he didn’t intend to start now, extenuating circumstances or otherwise.

In, out, in, out, move from the shoulder, not the wrist nor the elbow. Same as any other tool, at any other task that tested a man’s mettle. He wrapped his other arm around the elf’s neck, and cradled him against his chest as he began to shake again, over-pleasured and lost in it.

In, out, in out.

He watched Iorveth’s face intently, the eye squeezed shut, the rose-flush over the high cheekbones, the knot of muscle just over the proud curve of his nose as he chased his high, focused on it. The lips parted, red like a gash across new flesh, and he couldn’t take his eyes from it, the small pink shadow of tongue inside.

He wanted to kiss him.

With a sharp cry, Iorveth grasped at his chest with a seeking hand and came all over his fingers. Roche thrust up, once more, for good measure, clasped against the velvet of him. The elf sighed with it, arching again and again onto him, and Roche let him. 

When he finally stilled, Roche held him for long moments that stretched into each other. He seemed spent, finally, eye closed and heart steadying. He slipped out and closed his eyes too, the weight of the elf heavy in his arms as all that lay unsaid between them.

Was it over? Roche had no idea, but he began to become aware of how much time had passed. Slowly, he slid his arm out from underneath Iorveth, his other hand still splayed out on the elf’s thin stomach. When he did not respond, neither whining nor trying to stop him, that seemed a good a sign of _over_ as any.

Still flushed, Iorveth relaxed slowly against the blankets, long limbs folded over each other like an overgrown cat. One leg thrown out on the stone, he looked asleep, or near enough. The tension that had wracked his form had released somewhere in the play between them, and he could have been a young man in the forest again, with an arm thrown over his eye.

Stiffly, one creaking joint at a time, Roche got to his feet, and began to collect his clothing. He couldn’t even begin to separate one thought from the next. Pants were almost more than he could manage.

“Who would want to be here, Vernon?”

Iorveth spoke, finally, voice rasping and heavy with sleep. Roche turned to face him, fingers hopelessly slicked struggling to tie the red strings that held his tunic together.

“You asked me why I was alone,” Iorveth gestured at his face, a half-hearted flop of the arm. “Dunno why. You’ve seen me. Think, D’hoine.”

In that still-floating, absent voice, the insult had no bite to it. And think? After the day he’d had, Roche really didn’t feel like it. Slowly, he knotted his belt, gave up on the ties, and pulled on his boots.

Words rolled around his brain, disjointed, half-formed sentences. Why had he let him…? That was. That was good. Hoped it was good for him, too. Hoped it would last him.

What came out instead was, “Is that it?”

He hadn’t meant it quite that harshly, rough and stubble on the tongue, but the elf shrugged.

“For now. ‘S the worst of it, anyway.”

“Will you… Be okay?”

Why did he care? He didn’t. It would be stupid to care.

Iorveth’s laugh barked harshly in the too-small space.

“I’ll be fine.”

The words themselves were hard, but they came so soft, it sounded like _thank you_. That, too, unsettled him.

When he had tied every possible tie on his uniform, and knotted his boots twice over, he looked down once more at the elf. He hadn’t covered himself, white expanse of skin luxuriating across his nest—but now he was looking up at Roche, spent, but still analyzing, appraising. 

Roche nodded once, and left him.

\---

Iorveth’s words rattled around between his ears worse than anything.

_You’ve seen me._

And that was the worst of it, wasn’t it? He’d seen him. Knew how he looked when he wanted, when he came, how he sounded strung out with pleasure, pleasure _he’d_ given him. Given. Not taken, like would have been his by right. Human soldier and a horny elf, should have gone only one way, and he’d have killed a man for doing it.

But that. That wasn’t what had happened.

At the mouth of the cave, he took one last look at the red curtain. Nothing moved behind it, and he hoped Iorveth could sleep. Hoped he would sleep for a long time, after what they’d just done—and a small and disturbing part of his brain wished he could join him. Avoid the guilt that would hit his pleasure-wracked body later, when the warmth wore off.

Still. Time enough for that later.

He stepped out of the cave into the cool dusk. The wind—cold now—nipped at him, harsh and uncaring, as the reality of the passage of time caught up with him.

For now, it would enough to avoid running into any elves on the way home. Lucky enough none of them were back yet, trees still silent and empty. Swinging onto the near-vertical path, he let himself down one stone at a time, growling with the exposure, the elements, the fact that he would have to face his team empty-handed.

On the ground again, he glanced down at his uniform, and realized he was still covered near head to toe in white streaks, some still unmistakably damp.

_Fucking—_

Pontar ran along his trail back.

He could stop for a dip.


End file.
